Inside one of the two large Pavilions, a burly man that looked like he was in his late thirties was seated in a chair sipping on a cup of tea.
Across from him was a young man in his early twenties that wore golden robes fit for royalty.
“Crown Prince, as we have agreed, the weapons and pills are being put together to be delivered to the Royal Palace. You should keep your end of the bargain by covering our tracks in this City. Whatever business we conduct is our own private matters that shouldn’t be investigated.”
The young man who was identified as the Crown Prince had one leg over the other, with his fingers intertwined on his lap in a casual manner.
“So you propose I give you free rein in this City, and any signs of your existence should be covered up by me?”
The burly man sneered in his heart at this youth, while he thought, ‘This pompous brat. He’s only in the 5th stage of the Foundation Realm but here he is trying to look unperturbed. If I wasn’t worried that our existence will be discovered, we would have forcefully taken over this City and placed a puppet King in charge. But it would draw too much attention from the various Clans who aren’t within our control yet. They’re weak, but they still have a direct channel to report our presence to the various Orthodox Institutes. If that happened we’ll be surrounded on all sides. However, working with this Crown Prince has its merits. The image he created as an incompetent ruler is marvelous, with it, he could better hide our presence when we carry out our disciple recruitment. We still haven’t reached the quota to send back to the main branch.’
While these thoughts swirl in the burly man’s head, he placed down the tea and said, “That’s right, is there a problem?”
The Crown Prince released his intertwined fingers and lifted his hands in a shrugging gesture while saying, “No problems here, the weapons and pills you’ve provided us so far are of top quality. I’ll definitely keep my end of the bargain.”
The burly man was about to open his mouth to speak again, but a sudden shout interrupted him.
“INTRUDER!!!”
The burly man frowned and sent out his Soul Sense out of the Pavilion to scan the entire cavern.
At the entrance, the image of a person in dirty clothes wearing a faceless masked appeared in his mind.
However, despite its dirty appearance, he was well familiar with the Celestial Academy robes, unlike the man Xi Shen followed to this place.
The burly man’s expression turned gloomy at this sudden turn of events. A disciple from the Celestial Academy is in their secret hideout, what could it be other than a major disaster waiting to happen for them.
“Fuck!!”
The burly man cursed out loud. With the hideout discovered they would have to quickly relocate before members of the Orthodox Faction started raiding the place. But there was no time to move everything, they had to take what they could and leave immediately.
The Crown Prince seeing this quickly stood up and walked to the edge of the Pavilion, to see Xi Shen standing on top of the crates by the entrance, while using a strange technique to conjure Sword Qi to behead the Demonic Cultivators.
His face immediately turned ashen as he recognized the Celestial Academy robes as well.
‘He doesn’t know I’m here or my involvement, as long as I can escape undetected everything would be fine.’
The Crown Prince analyzed as he turned around to leave, but only saw the burly man giving him a vicious look.
Upon seeing this, the Crown Prince cursed in his heart.
‘This bastard, is he planning to kill me since I have no further use?!’
Outside of the Pavilion, Xi Shen stood on top of the crates at the entrance and gestured towards one of the Demonic Cultivators.
A Sword Qi in the shape of a broadsword materialized in front of him before piercing the void at blinding speed to stab that Demonic Cultivator in the back, pinning him to the floor.
After, Xi Shen looked around the cavern that had devolved into chaos, but he sported a frown under his faceless masked.
‘Why is everyone running away?’
Looking at the Demonic Cultivators, Xi Shen saw that instead of charging at him like he thought they would, they were running away to the passageways on the other side of the cavern.
Completely annoyed, his figure vanished from his position on the crates and appeared in front of a random Demonic Cultivator.
The Demonic Cultivator was first stunned, but then sensing Xi Shen’s cultivation aura, he chose to release, at the Sea Expansion Realm, his face morphed into a vicious expression and he barked, “Get out of my way you bastard from the Righteous Faction!!”
This Demonic Cultivator wielded a staff, and he skillfully swung it out at a strange trajectory towards Xi Shen’s face.
Xi Shen read the movements of the staff and easily side-stepped the attack.
The Sword Qi that suddenly materialized in his hand slashed out and severed the man’s hand that was holding the staff.
The Demonic Cultivator let out a painful wail as he clutched at his missing arm that was spurting blood.
On his knees, Xi Shen placed the Sword Qi against the man’s neck and ask, “You, where are all of you running to?” his voice distorted from the manipulation of his vocal cords.
Hearing this, the Demonic Cultivator who was feeling immense pain couldn’t help but become confused.
“You-wh-what?”
Xi Shen didn’t answer the Demonic Cultivator's question but simply pressed the Sword Qi closer to his neck.
Scared and terrified, the Demonic Cultivators stuttered out, “Wi-with you here, that means the Orthodox Institutions are on their way.”
“Huh?”
Xi Shen said dumbfounded.
“Why would they come here? I didn’t call for them.”
Upon hearing this, the Demonic Cultivator gave Xi Shen a stupefied look, and it took a moment to process the meaning behind Xi Shen’s words.
After, he sneered in contempt and said, “Did you actually come here without backup? You stupid fool, your just a Sea Expansion Realm cultivator, this place will be your grave!!”
Without any warning or prompting, that Demonic Cultivator suddenly flung out a hidden dagger with his remaining hand towards Xi Shen’s masked covered face.
Xi Shen easily moved his head to the side and dodged the knife, but a few strands of his messy hair, which was mixed between golden and light brown, was severed.
That Demonic Cultivator had already turned around a dash off as soon as he threw the knife, but Xi Shen suddenly let go of the Sword Qi in his hand and it flew out towards that Demonic Cultivator.
The Demonic Cultivator was using his full speed but the Sword Qi immediately caught up to him who was already thirty meters away. He tried to dodge the Sword Qi but it seemed to be guided by some force that kept it locked onto him.
With a sickening “Pitua” sound, the Sword Qi was embedded into his skull killing him in an instant.
Having gotten the reason why everyone was running away in a hurry, Xi Shen lifted his head and barked, “I’m the only Orthodox member here!! No one is coming to raid this place!! If you kill me then your hideout location won’t be discovered!!!”
As Xi Shen’s voice echoed off the walls of the cavern, it entered the ears of the frantic Demonic Cultivators and they paused.
The chaotic cavern suddenly became deathly quiet.
“So come at me!!” Xi Shen's shout echoed as it bounced off the cavern walls.
In the Pavilion, the Crown Prince’s body tensed as the burly man seemed ready to kill him, but suddenly Xi Shen’s declaration entered the Pavilion.
The burly man was first taken aback, but after shooting the Crown Prince a death glare, he moved past him and went to the edge of the Pavilion to look at Xi Shen.
Sensing his Sea Expansion Realm Cultivation once again, the burly man frowned and said, “Who are you? Do you think your words would trick anyone? Which Sea Expansion Realm brat would willingly try to take on this many of our Demonic Cult members alone?”
Xi Shen thought for a moment, and then have come up with an idea on the spot, in his distorted voice he looked across the cavern to the pavilion and said, “I’m the Faceless Hero, the number one genius on the Maple Continent and a bringer of justice! This is the first of many hideouts of the Demonic Cult I will subjugate. I will be the one to eradicate you all from my Continent, me and me alone, I don’t need help to get rid of you abhorrent wretches.”
Hearing this, a strange expression appeared on the burly man's face as well as on the Demonic Cultivators in the surroundings.
Then, the burly man burst out into laughter which was accompanied by the Demonic Cultivators below. They were even holding their stomachs and were about to keel over from the hilarious joke they just received. Truly, it was a good one that tickled their funny bone immensely.
Seeing this reaction, Xi Shen only stood motionlessly where he was, and a Sword Qi slowly materialized in his hand.
After laughing his head off, the burly man looked down at Xi Shen and said, “Faceless Hero? A bringer of justice? Justice is just a word used by those righteous bigots as an excuse to carry out mass murder. Never mind that, with your cultivation what justice can you bring? Only the strong get’s to decide that, you're only wishing for death by coming here alone.”
After saying that, the burly man’s expression then turned dark as he barked, “Men! KILL HIM!!!”
As his voice thundered out, all the Demonic Cultivators suddenly released their killing intent all at once. An overwhelming aura of bloodlust then began to fill the entire cavern.
In front of Xi Shen, all the hundred or so eyes of the Demonic Cultivators were staring at him with the desire to kill. It was a completely terrifying scene.
Suddenly…
*Swoosh!* *Swoosh!* *Swoosh!*
The first wave of Demonic Cultivators charged towards Xi Shen like a pack of wolves that had smelt the scent of a weak and cornered prey.
*******
~Fun Fact~
This chapter would seem cooler if you imagine it being a Korean martial arts Manhua, with all the flashy color panels. This last scene would be a two-page spread showing the numerous cultivators with Demonic Qi swirling around them, glaring at a masked Xi Shen with a Sword Qi in hand before charging at him.
Ahh man, I wanna make this book into manga/manhua so bad.
Word Count: 1747
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l